GCC working days and public holidays 2027: what stops the SLA clock

On 1 January your ITSM tool starts counting 2027 SLA time on whatever schedule it holds. If Eid is missing, the clock runs through it; if a holiday your country has dropped is still there, the clock stops on a working day. Either way, the year's first report is wrong before anyone touches a ticket.

Every Islamic date below is expected: it follows the moon sighting and is confirmed shortly before. Dates checked 10 October 2026. Jump to the five-step set-up.

Working days and business hours 2027 by GCC country

These figures come from the GCC business hours calendar, on each preset's default week: UAE private sector Monday to Friday, 08:00–17:00; UAE federal Monday to Thursday 07:30–15:30 and Friday 07:30–12:00; the other five Sunday to Thursday, 08:00–17:00. Before holidays that is 261 days and 2,349 hours in the UAE (1,902.5 federal), and 260 days and 2,340 hours in the other five. The last column also applies the default Ramadan hours, 09:00–15:00 on every working day from Monday 8 February to Monday 8 March (expected; to Tuesday 9 March in Oman).

Five countries share one week and 2,340 hours, yet holidays leave Qatar with 2,277 and Oman with 2,205: one ITSM schedule for all GCC desks is wrong for most. When a supplier quotes UAE private-sector "business hours" cover, ask whether it means 2,277 hours or 2,349. The Ramadan default is a placeholder, not the law: take your hours from the HR circular, and each country's rule from the Ramadan 2027 playbook. On the federal preset the 6-hour default is longer than the 4.5-hour Friday, so 1,817.5 counts four 6-hour Ramadan Fridays: use FAHR's Ramadan hours.

Public holidays 2027 by country

Each table is the private-sector entitlement the preset carries. "Days" counts calendar days, weekends included; "(weekend)" marks a day the clock has already stopped; "If it moves" is the likeliest alternative date.

UAE: private sector and federal government

Cabinet Resolution 27/2024 sets one list for both sectors, confirmed by MoHRE circular for the private sector and FAHR for federal staff. FAHR's occasional bridge days, such as Monday 25 May 2026 before Eid Al Adha (FAHR), are unpredictable, so the preset carries none.

Saudi Arabia: private and non-profit sector

The Labour Law Implementing Regulations, Art. 24, set the entitlement, and each Eid break is announced shortly before it.

The Eid Al Fitr break starts the day after 29 Ramadan on the Umm al-Qura calendar (expected Monday 8 March), whatever the sighting; Eid Al Adha moves if the Supreme Court accepts no sighting on 6 May.

Qatar: private sector

Labour Law 14/2004, Art. 78, counts its entitlements in working days (Mondaq summary), and the Ministry of Labour confirms each holiday by notice (Sport Day, Eid Al Adha, National Day).

Arafat Day, Hijri New Year, the Prophet's Birthday, Isra and Mi'raj and 1 January are not private-sector holidays here, and no preset can hold the three paid days each employer chooses under Art. 78 (whether Sport Day counts as one of them is unclear).

Kuwait: private sector

Labour Law 6/2010, Art. 68, lists the paid holidays, as quoted by Kuwait Times (Art. 68 list, New Year), and each is set by Cabinet decision and Civil Service Commission circular a few weeks ahead.

Liberation Day is not a separate item in the quoted Art. 68 text. The Cabinet declares it every year and Kuwait Times reports it as a holiday for everyone (Liberation Day), so the preset includes it, but its private-sector legal basis is unconfirmed. On a Friday in 2027, it costs no working day whether or not it binds private employers.

Oman: public and private sectors

Royal Decree 88/2022, as amended by RD 15/2025, sets the holidays and each announcement covers both sectors; because Oman sights its own moon, "If it moves" gives the Umm al-Qura date, or the one-day-later case where the two agree. Every date outside the two Eids is provisional until the 2027 advance list, due in late December 2026.

Eid Al Adha uses the 9 to 13 Dhu al-Hijjah span Oman announced for both sectors in 2024, 2025 and 2026 (2026: Times of Oman); if it announces only the decree's minimum (Sunday 16 to Wednesday 19 May, expected), the preset over-counts one working day.

Bahrain: private sector

Labour Law 36/2012, Art. 64, gives full-pay leave on the occasions the Council of Ministers sets: in practice those of Decree 40/2002 (read in extract, later amendments not checked), confirmed by circular. Arafat Day is not in the decree's extract, but every Eid Al Adha circular from 2024 to 2026 included it (2025: News of Bahrain).

Ashura ran one day after Umm al-Qura in 2025 and 2026 (2026: News of Bahrain), but in 2027 the deciding crescent should be visible, so Tuesday 15 June (expected) is a holiday either way.

The traps that move an SLA clock

Oman sights its own moon

The other five countries are on Umm al-Qura dates here; Oman is not. Its committee decides from local sighting reports, and from 2024 to 2026 it came out one day after Saudi Arabia in 4 of the 9 occasions checked, each time when the crescent could not be seen at Muscat. Qatar and Kuwait also decide by their own sighting and were only partly checked against Umm al-Qura (Qatar's 2026 Eids; Kuwait's Eid Al Adha 2024–26, not its Eid Al Fitr 2024–25), so treat the one-day-later dates in their tables as a real possibility. Build each country's schedule from its own table, not from Riyadh's or Dubai's.

Eid can start a day later, or run a day longer

Both Eid crescents, on 8 March and 6 May, will be only 4 to 5 hours old, so either Eid can start a day late, with different effects (all dates expected):

• Saudi Arabia: the Eid Al Fitr break holds; Eid Al Adha moves to Sun 16 – Wed 19 May.
• UAE: Eid Al Fitr still starts Tue 9 Mar, because a 30-day Ramadan makes 30 Ramadan a holiday too (MoHRE notices of 19 March 2025 and 23 February 2026; FAHR, 2026); the break then runs to Fri 12 Mar. Astronomy favours 30 days, but the UAE kept a 29-day Ramadan in 2025 with an even younger moon, so the preset carries 3 days. Eid Al Adha moves a day.
• Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain: each Eid moves a day, taking Eid Al Fitr to Fri 12 Mar.
• Oman: the expected dates already assume the later start.

Name cover and P1 on-call for both possible days but load only the expected one: an undated Eid counts as working time, so a blank row is certain to be wrong.

Weekend holidays and the day in lieu

• UAE: none. Article 3 of Resolution 27/2024 keeps a weekend holiday where it falls (the Cabinet moved midweek ones in 2025 and 2026, 1 to 3 weeks ahead).
• Saudi Arabia: one equivalent day, chosen by the employer, for an Eid that overlaps the weekly rest day (Art. 24(2)): Eid Al Fitr on Fri 12 Mar, and Eid Al Adha on Sat 15 May where Saturday is also a rest day (both expected; not if that break moves to Sun 16 – Wed 19 May).
• Qatar: the Ministry of Labour notice sets National Day's substitute day.
• Kuwait: no law gives a substitute weekday; the Cabinet adds government rest days case by case.
• Oman: one day for a holiday on the weekly rest day (RD 88/2022): in 2027, National Day's Sat 20 Nov, and the Prophet's Birthday or Isra and Mi'raj 1449 if either lands on a Saturday.
• Bahrain: a day in lieu, agreed by employer and worker, for a holiday on a Friday or on another holiday (Art. 64), including Fri 12 Mar (expected) if Eid Al Fitr is a day late. Saturday is not named, so Labour Day, Arafat Day and the Prophet's Birthday have no clear statutory day in lieu.

Government is not the private sector

Government calendars can differ by a week: Saudi civil-service Eid breaks run about Friday 5 to Saturday 13 March and Wednesday 12 to Saturday 22 May (expected, by the regulation as reported), Qatar's 28 Ramadan to 4 Shawwal and 9 to 13 Dhu al-Hijjah (about Sun 7 to Fri 12 March and Sat 15 to Wed 19 May), and Sharjah's government departments have a Friday-to-Sunday weekend. Your SLA schedule follows the days your desk is contracted to work, not the days your customer is closed; stopping the clock for their closures is an SLA change, agreed in writing.

Stale holidays: Commemoration Day and Oman's National Day

Commemoration Day (30 November) is not in the UAE's Resolution 27/2024 holiday table, so on the text it is not a paid day off for either sector, and the calendar leaves it out pending the mid-November circular (below). Schedules rolled forward from the repealed 2019 rules may still carry it on 1 December: take it out. Oman's National Day moved to 20–21 November under RD 15/2025, but many calendars still show 18–19 November, a Thursday and a Friday in 2027.

Set it up in five steps

1. Open the GCC business hours calendar and choose your country under Country preset. That replaces the calendar, so use Export calendar first if you have changed it.
2. Press Fill in 2027 dates. It loads that country's holidays and Ramadan dates from the tables above and drops preset holidays it does not observe.
3. Check each row against your country's table. Set working and Ramadan hours from the HR circular, delete what you do not observe, and add days in lieu, bridge days and, in Qatar, the employer's three chosen days. The band above the calendar should then read Good: every holiday dated, Ramadan hours set.
4. Copy the same dates, lengths and hours into the SLA schedule in ServiceNow, Jira or Freshservice: two calendars that disagree give two SLA figures.
5. Export the calendar and file it with the SLA document, quoting the sentence the calendar writes ("Our business-hours SLAs run on…").

It runs in your browser; nothing you enter is sent to ITSM Compass.

What to do on each announcement day

• Mid-November 2026. UAE: the MoHRE (and FAHR) circular for Mon 30 Nov 2026, Commemoration Day's first weekday under the 2024 rules, says whether it is a day off. Carry the answer to Tue 30 Nov 2027.
• Late December 2026. Oman's 2027 advance list (no Eids). The 2026 one moved every single-day holiday next to the Friday–Saturday weekend (Oman Observer), so replace each non-Eid date with the list's and take "(expected)" out of its name, or the next Fill in 2027 dates restores the old date. Bahrain: agree the day in lieu for Fri 1 Jan with your staff, as Art. 64 requires.
• Evening of Sat 6 or Sun 7 Feb 2027 (expected). Confirm Ramadan, expected Mon 8 Feb. A Tue 9 Feb start moves the UAE's Eid Al Fitr to Wed 10 – Fri 12 Mar and Oman's break to Tue 9 – Fri 12 Mar (expected).
• Evening of Mon 8 Mar (29 Ramadan, expected). The crescent decides Eid Al Fitr. UAE: add Fri 12 Mar if Ramadan runs 30 days. Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain: move Eid to Wed 10 – Fri 12 Mar if it starts a day late. Saudi Arabia: the break holds.
• Evening of Thu 6 May (expected). The crescent decides Arafat Day and Eid Al Adha: move both a day later if no sighting is accepted; in Oman, a day earlier if it matches Umm al-Qura.
• Evening of Sat 5 Jun (expected). If the crescent is missed, move Hijri New Year to Mon 7 Jun and Bahrain's Ashura to Tue 15 – Wed 16 Jun.
• November and December 2027. National Day notices name Qatar's substitute day, Bahrain's public-sector day in lieu (likeliest Sun 19 Dec) and any move to the UAE's Eid Al Etihad. Add whichever applies to your desk when named; Bahrain's private employers agree their own Art. 64 day for Fri 17 Dec.

On each crescent evening and each Eid notice:

1. Correct the date in the business calendar (usually to the "If it moves" date) and take "(expected)" out of the name, so a later Fill in 2027 dates keeps it.
2. Make the same change in the ITSM tool's schedule that day; I run it as a standard change, with no change meeting.
3. In the SLA clock, choose "My saved calendar", replay one ticket open across the changed days, and check its due time matches the ITSM tool's.
4. Tell the business in one line which day the clock now stops.

Send this before 1 January, with your own details in the brackets:

From 1 January 2027 our business-hours SLA clock stops on [UAE] public holidays: [the list, with "expected" against every Islamic date]. Islamic dates follow the moon sighting, so we will update the schedule on the day each is announced. [P1] incidents run [24 × 7]; other priorities count only working time, so a [P3] logged the afternoon before [Eid Al Fitr (expected Tuesday 9 March)] is due after the break.

The checklist

1. Keep one SLA schedule per country, plus one for any desk on a government calendar.
2. Fill in the 2027 dates per country, check each row against its table, and set Ramadan hours from the HR circular.
3. Ask HR in December for days in lieu, bridge days and employer-chosen days; add each when decided.
4. Take out Oman's old National Day (18–19 November), and Commemoration Day unless the mid-November circular makes it a day off.
5. Copy the dates and hours into the ITSM tool; file the exported calendar with the SLA document.
6. Name Eid cover and P1 on-call for both possible days.
7. Send the business the holiday note before 1 January.
8. Diary the announcement days; on each, change the business calendar and the ITSM tool's schedule the same day.